Top 10 Veterans News from Around the Country 10-04-09

What’s Inside Today’s Local News for Veterans

1. VA Issues $50 Million Emergency Checks To Veterans. 
2. Washington State Veterans Home Superintendent Hiring Called Into Question. 
3. VA Clinic Needs Guarantee In Writing To Stay At St. Joseph. 
4. NYTimes Calls For End To "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell" Law. 
5. Islamists In Somalia May Be Recruiting Young Somali-Americans. 
6. Today in History:

1.      VA Issues $50 Million Emergency Checks To Veterans.  All Headline News (10/3, Genova) reports, "The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) issued to thousands of veterans emergency checks amounting to nearly $50 million on Friday as advance payment for their education benefits. The money is intended to pay for veterans’ school expenses, including housing and books, as a backlog in applications for education funds delayed the release of their claims for various VA programs and additional benefits entitled them under the new Post-9/11 GI Bill of 2001. The department has yet to process some 75,000 applications prompting complaints of slow service from the veterans."
      The Washington Post (10/3, Brown, 684K) reports, "Some 6,619 student veterans had received emergency checks at the Department of Veterans Affairs’ 57 regional offices by 3 p.m. Friday," while 6,752 more veterans "had applied for the aid — a maximum $3,000 advance against benefits — online. As of last week, fewer than 10 percent of the 251,000 veterans who had applied for GI Bill benefits had actually received checks, forcing thousands to use savings or take out personal loans to make ends meet."
      The Barre Montpelier Times Argus (10/4, O’Gorman) reports, "Brandon Willitts is not your traditional Marlboro College student. The 26-year-old self-described ‘Army brat’ served in the U.S. Navy from December 2001 until February 2006 and was an intelligence specialist in Afghanistan, where he gathered information to support ground and air forces. He also is one of many veterans who are going to school on the new Post- 9/11 GI Bill. While many payments have been delayed, the Veterans Administration and colleges are stepping up to make sure veterans like Willitts receive the benefits – and the education – they deserve. The Post- 9/11 GI Bill, which went into effect Aug. 1, provides financial support for education and housing for anyone who was honorably discharged with at least 90 days of military service – or discharged after 30 days with a service-connected disability – after Sept. 11, 2001."  

2.      Washington State Veterans Home Superintendent Hiring Called Into Question.  Washington State’s Kitsap Sun (10/4) reports, "As a state board investigates the appointment of one veterans home superintendent, a clarification of hiring practices will be issued by the director of Veterans Affairs to ‘ensure there is no confusion in future recruitments,’ a spokeswoman at Gov. Chris Gregoire’s office said. The clarification, the specifics of which have yet to be disclosed, come after Director John Lee appointed three superintendents in the past year and a half in apparent contradiction with at least six state laws." Spokeswoman Karina Shagren said, "Gov. Gregoire has always made the care and support of our veterans a top priority. The governor and DVA Director John Lee share the same priority for our veterans’ facilities: Residents must receive absolutely the best care available. The governor has been assured that, throughout the administrative transitions, residents have continued to receive the high-quality services befitting our veterans." Before the "recent investigation and questions over hiring, the issue of qualifications has been addressed at least
twice in the past decade. According to a March 2006 report issued by the state auditor’s office, which was conducted in response to a whistle-blower assertion that executives at the Spokane Veterans Home were hired despite not being veterans, there was reasonable cause that ‘improper governmental action occurred’ when those appointments were made."  

3.      VA Clinic Needs Guarantee In Writing To Stay At St. Joseph.  Ohio’s Lorain Morning Journal (10/3, Dolasinski) reports, "The Veteran’s Affairs Clinic in the St. Joseph Community Center is waiting on official, written word that the utilities will remain on after Dec. 31, if they remain there. South Shore CDC Corp., which oversees the center, will have to provide — in writing — that the utilities will remain on in the Louis Stokes Cleveland Veterans Affairs Medical Center Outpatient Clinic in Lorain. If it doesn’t get the promise in writing, the clinic, at 205 W. 20th St., will have to pack up and move out at the end of the year." The St. Joseph Community Center "faces the possibility of closing because its utility bills have become a drain on the 12 tenants. In addition to its projected $300,000 deficit, it will also have to start paying back its $2.5 million in loans." The center’s overseer, South Shore CDC, in March told the VA Clinic it would have to vacate by year’s end, and the VA Clinic, which annually serves about 7,500 patients, has been searching for temporary space, even though a spokesman says it would prefer to stay in the St. Joseph Center but, if the city is unable to arrange for continued utility service, the award of a contract for temporary space is probably about four weeks away.  

4.      NYTimes Calls For End To "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell" Law.  The New York Times (10/4, WK7, 1.09M) editorializes, "Sixteen years after passage of the ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ law, there is reason to hope that the military is edging away from its destructive opposition to allowing gay men and lesbians to serve openly. … By cementing homophobic military policy into law, Congress made a bad situation worse. … Congress must repeal the 1993 statute. We are not confident that the Senate has enough enlightened members to overcome a filibuster. But if the military can show an open mind, surely lawmakers can summon the courage to end this sad chapter in history." 5.      Islamists In Somalia May Be Recruiting Young Somali-Americans.  The Washington Post (10/4, Hsu, 684K) reports the FBI is investigating whether a young American took part in a September 17 bombing in Mogadishu, Somalia. The probe "has refocused attention on the recruitment of Somali Americans by Islamist extremists in Somalia" and the growing role of Al Qaeda there, according to US counterterrorism officials. If the unnamed young man’s involvement is "confirmed, he would be the second U.S. citizen in the past year to have become a suicide bomber and at least the seventh radicalized U.S. youth to die" after joining the Somali insurgent group Al Shabab.

 6.      Today in History:

• 610 – Heraclius arrives by ship from Africa at Constantinople, overthrows Byzantine Emperor Phocas and becomes Emperor.
• 1363 – End of the Battle of Lake Poyang; the Chinese rebel forces of Zhu Yuanzhang defeat that of his rival, Chen Youliang, in one of the largest naval battles in history.
• 1636 – The Swedish Army defeats the armies of Saxony and the Holy Roman Empire at the Battle of Wittstock.
• 1693 – Battle of Marsaglia: Piedmontese troops are defeated by the French.
• 1777 – Battle of Germantown: Troops under George Washington are repelled by British troops under Sir William Howe.
• 1779 – The Fort Wilson Riot takes place.
• 1795 – Napoleon Bonaparte first rises to national prominence with a "Whiff of Grapeshot", using cannon to suppress armed counter-revolutionary rioters threatening the French Legislature (National Convention).
• 1824 – Mexico adopts a new constitution and becomes a federal republic.
• 1830 – Creation of the state of Belgium after separation from The Netherlands.
• 1853 – Crimean War: The Ottoman Empire declares war on Russia.
• 1876 – Texas A&M University opens as the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas, becoming the first public institution of higher education in Texas.
• 1883 – First run of the Orient Express.
• 1883 – First meeting of the Boys’ Brigade in Glasgow, Scotland.
• 1895 – The first U.S. Open Men’s Golf Championship administered by the United States Golf Association is played at the Newport Country Club in Newport, Rhode Island.
• 1918 – An explosion kills more than 100 and destroys the T.A. Gillespie Company Shell Loading Plant in Sayreville, New Jersey. Fires and explosions continue for three days forcing massive evacuations and spreading ordnance over a wide area, pieces of which were still being found in 2007.
• 1927 – Gutzon Borglum begins sculpting Mount Rushmore.
• 1940 – Meeting between Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini at the Brenner Pass.
• 1943 – World War II: U.S. captures Solomon Islands.
• 1957 – Space Race: Launch of Sputnik I, the first artificial satellite to orbit the Earth.
• 1965 – Becoming the first Pope to ever visit the United States of America and the Western hemisphere, Pope Paul VI arrives in New York.
• 1976 – Official launch of the Intercity 125 High Speed Train (HST).
• 1983 – Richard Noble sets a new land speed record of 633.468 mph (1,019 km/h), driving Thrust 2 at the Black Rock Desert of Nevada.
• 1985 – Free Software Foundation is founded in Massachusetts, United States.
• 1988 – U.S. televangelist Jim Bakker is indicted for fraud.
• 1992 – The Rome General Peace Accords ends a 16 year civil war in Mozambique.
• 1993 – Russian Constitutional Crisis: In Moscow, tanks bombard the White House, a government building that housed the Russian parliament, while demonstrators against President Boris Yeltsin rally outside.
• 1997 – The second largest cash robbery in U.S. history occurs at the Charlotte, North Carolina office of Loomis, Fargo and Company. An FBI investigation eventually results in 24 convictions and the recovery of approximately 95% of the $17.3 million in cash which had been taken.
• 2001 – NATO confirms invocation of Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty.
• 2003 – Maxim restaurant suicide bombing in Haifa, Israel: 21 Israelis, Jews and Arabs, are killed, and 51 others wounded.
• 2004 – SpaceShipOne wins Ansari X Prize for private spaceflight. By being the first private craft to fly into space.